Hey I am leaving my room (in shared apartment) and it is well furnished. It is also in a tax effective location.
Since I am not interested in keeping the furniture, I would really like to leave it here. I feel it will be appreciated by anyone coming in (especially if new to Switzerland). However, I need to give notice by end of march to leave it and I would like to bargain with the owner to pay for it or at least discount me some rent (it’s a 3 months notice).
Do you have any suggestion or experience on this?
Overall I have a desk, a bed / double bed, sofa, closet and a carpet, mirror and light. I also have a freezer outside the balcony, since it is quite handy for a shared apartment. Nothing hanged on the wall.
I would like to approach the owner in the best way possible. I was also thinking I might find someone to come in my place even sooner, but the contract states that by the end of march I should give notice.
I have managed to pull this off twice, selling the furniture to the next tenant. You get pennies on the dollar as komsomolez said, but normal disposal is a real pain. I was quoted 500 CHF just for disassembling my wardrobe and delivering to the disposal facilities, without taking into account the extra disposal fee, which would be rather high as the wardrobe was quite heavy. So I was happy to accept 250 CHF (on a 2 year old and 1200 EUR wardrobe), along with some other items.
Plus, there are no guarantees that the tenant that is selected by the landlord wants to buy the furniture. And if you try to play the ‘I choose the tenant who wants to buy the furniture’ game, it can backfire as it will drastically reduce the number of applicants and it seems you want to leave as early as possible.
When we refurnished a room some time ago, wr called some charitable organizations whether they wanted anything. They said no and mentioned that they had been given so much, they did not know what to do with it.
A bit side, but possibly useful info. When we refurnished one of our rooms, one of our buying criteria was whether the furniture shop takes care of the old furniture. We were surprised that both places we used actually took the old furniture (of course, you don’t get anything for it, but also you avoid the hassle and possible cost of disposing).
My type is a room for people that either do not stay long (because they arrived in switzerland) or they get it for tax reasons (and they put stuff in just to show that they use it).
So I think it might work. I will make some pictures and ask my landlord
Just a quick question: I am writing my termination letter, however in the template it says to put also a “Contract number”, but i do not have it on my contract (this field is empty).
Is it ok so to not put it in the termination letter?
I don’t remember putting in any contract numbers in my termination letters. Just the termination date, the address of the flat and the floor. And don’t forget to send it by registered post.
Yes, we used a “brocki” (short for Brockenhaus) which took all our unwanted stuff (and we even got some money for it). But you can also try to sell it somewhere else if you think they’re more valuable. Or simply give them away. One thing is for sure, you can’t leave your furniture in the apartment, unless agreed upon with the next tenant. You may think the next tenant would appreciate it, but it’s rarely the case here. People want their own stuff. Approaching the landlord with this proposition has close to 0 results.
By previous experience, we’ve bought and sold furniture before and worked out pretty well. In desirable areas when you’re inundated by applications of Nachmieters it’s usually a typical requirement to get on the top of the list of applicants to offer to buy furniture. In many cases it’s a convenience for both parties.
2 apartments earlier we sold some of our stuff as we had no use for them, and gotten largely what we had paid when we moved in for them. This works especially well for wardrobes and other large stuff.
However it will depend a lot on location and type of renter. You do lose money vs retail price, but that’s to be expected. If you buy used and sell used, the loss is much smaller (if any).
It is like the current tenant has a choice over who’s gonna be the the next one based on their own agenda, and if some landlords may agree to it only to have less headaches with renting their property, you can’t really prove anything. Yes it may be illegal, however - who cares, no? I guess…I mean of course it shouldn’t happen, however…reality.
In our case something else happened - we didn’t want to give notice till we didn’t sign the new lease contract, and the agency we dealt with was so disinterested in providing it on time, so we ended up paying two more months just to be able to move. That is the real cost of living in CH. Too bad I didn’t start a thread back then on EF in the complaints corner, what a fun I would have had reading all the posts there.
I mean, when you’re looking for a Nachmieter, you can chose which applications to give to the landlord; the applicant could apply separately I guess, but that’s not always easy.
Also in many cases the landlord will prefer to have a filtered set of applications instead of going through a whole stack. Most importantly, coming to think of it, if you’re out of normal notice windows and you present a couple of candidates that are financially able (1 is the legal limit, 3 is a good practice), the landlord can reject them but will have to bear the empty apartment.
From personal and friends’ experiences, it is usually much easier to get an apartment through the Nachmieter process, especially if you’re flexible and can move in at their timing. We got two apartments like that in our time in Switzerland.
With the vacancy rates in the Zurich area, and even the suburbs, in my mind if you need to play a game to get a place, you play it. Otherwise you really need to plan ahead and take your time. But when you’re looking for months on end and you have pressure because of space, commuting time, family or financial situation changing, and you’re hitting wall after wall, if someone winks at you for taking an IKEA pax in the back room for 500 CHF, you say thank you and don’t haggle much on the price.
